Not Actually a Cat
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courtcritic.bsky.social
Not Actually a Cat
@courtcritic.bsky.social
Inclusive Constitutionalist, copy editor, queer refugee from the Confederacy, community gardener, antiplutocrat, antifascist, home cook and pickler, songwriter, UX advocate, samba drummer, and fan of fiction who aspires to the life of a house cat
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Ms. Cohen is getting to the heart of the matter.
pulling this reflection on white silence/fear over here, too:
January 16, 2026 at 1:30 AM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
You're telling me a woman was forced to give up her trophy to a biological male
María Corina Machado on her meeting with Trump: “I presented the president of the United States with the Nobel Peace Prize”
January 15, 2026 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
🚨BREAKING: Federal Court DISMISSES Dept. of Justice lawsuit seeking unreacted statewide voter registration list. A big victory for our clients -- the NAACP, NAACP-CA/HI and SIREN --and the citizens of California. www.democracydocket.com/cases/califo...
🚨 United States v. Weber
Learn more here.
www.democracydocket.com
January 15, 2026 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Melia and her stuffy are having a fun time outside. She's still looking for a low traffic adult only home. No dogs. Check her out below. Give her a chance & adopt her. 👇

www.facebook.com/reel/1451850...

Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter
(516) 785-5220
3320 Beltagh Avenue , Unit
Wantagh, NY 11793
174 reactions · 62 comments | Melia has been here 856 days, and we are committed to making sure she never comes back through these doors a fourth time. She needs a low-traffic, adult-only home with no...
Melia has been here 856 days, and we are committed to making sure she never comes back through these doors a fourth time. She needs a low-traffic, adult-only home with no other dogs, an experienced...
www.facebook.com
January 15, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
The occupation of Minneapolis is an outrageous, criminal assault on an American city. @ryanlcooper.com goes through the origins of this in the mendacious hyping of unproven day care fraud, which immigration authorities don't police.
prospect.org/2026/01/15/t...
Trump’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Minneapolis - The American Prospect
There are reportedly about 3,000 federal immigration officers running riot in Minneapolis. They have been captured on video beating, gassing, and pepper-spraying bystanders and kidnapping people off t...
prospect.org
January 15, 2026 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
This is incredible: 81% of working class and 83% of young voters have seen video of Renee Good's killing, per new data I've obtained. Majority of working class disapproves of ICE enforcement. ICE brutality is breaking through big time.

Some thoughts on this here:

newrepublic.com/article/2052...
January 15, 2026 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
BREAKING: Hundreds of sensitive U.S. records obtained by WIRED undercut the Trump administration’s claims portraying Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua as a unified terrorist force invading the country. Intelligence agencies spent much of 2025 unsure TdA even functioned as an organization on U.S. soil.
Trump Warned of a Tren de Aragua ‘Invasion.’ US Intel Told a Different Story
Hundreds of records obtained by WIRED show thin intelligence on the Venezuelan gang in the United States, describing fragmented, low-level crime rather than a coordinated terrorist threat.
www.wired.com
January 14, 2026 at 4:02 PM
@repdwightevans.bsky.social , Congress needs to act quickly to hold ICE agents (and other federal LEOs!) accountable for their violence and lawlessness. Please consider Profesor Vladeck's elegant solution.
It would take a two-word amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to subject ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers to the same liability for constitutional violations that local and state officers currently face.

If Congress actually cared about what it's seeing, it could pass that overnight.
January 14, 2026 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
The Supreme Court only cleared the way for Kavanaugh Stops four months ago and ICE now openly engages in violent racial profiling, snatching anyone who looks non-white and treating them as presumptively guilty of a crime. Remarkable how quickly our liberties can be crushed when courts go along.
Can confirm I have personally seen three attempts just today of agents in a convoy of ICE vehicles trying to snatch random POCs along Central Ave - and then being chased off by neighbors with whistles. It's blatant racial profiling.

Minneapolis city council member says POC should stay home:
Dear neighbor,

HIGH ALERT‼️ If you are vulnerable to deportation please stay home today. I’m sorry to say this but it’s not safe to be outside. ICE is tearing families apart.

Children of immigrants please keep your family safe.

Jason Chavez 1/
January 14, 2026 at 4:29 PM
January 14, 2026 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
🧵 The autoworker at the Dearborn Truck Plant is a proud member of a strong and fighting union—the UAW. He believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job.
January 14, 2026 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
"They found that hyperscale data center developers often choose to build in rural communities rather than urban locations, not to create jobs and increase a community's economy, but because of low costs and abundant land."
www.kare11.com/article/news...
Data centers target rural communities for lower costs, not to create high-quality jobs, study finds
Local governments often tell residents that the power-hungry developments will bring numerous tech jobs to their communities. A new study contradicted that.
www.kare11.com
January 13, 2026 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
To recap: @GovBillLee rejected tens of millions of dollars to feed hungry low income kids, but wants to up his coupons for kids already in private schools to $300,000,000 yearly.

Any questions?
January 13, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
It would take a two-word amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to subject ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers to the same liability for constitutional violations that local and state officers currently face.

If Congress actually cared about what it's seeing, it could pass that overnight.
January 12, 2026 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
It would appear I am now a columnist at Inside Higher Ed. My first piece focuses on McCarthyism, censorship, and our current moment in higher education. This is an essay I started nearly 6 months ago so I'm glad to finally share it with y'all.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Censorship Arrives on Campus
In her debut column, “Echoes in the Quad,” higher education policy scholar Dominique J. Baker explores how the political oppression of the McCarthy era reverberates in the stifling of academic freedom...
www.insidehighered.com
January 13, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Anonymity for law enforcement personnel (or any government officials engaged in or any type of enforcement or incarceration activity should be itself a crime. Any law enforcement should be required to have full faces showing and prominent full names and badge numbers visible.
January 12, 2026 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Would someone who loves and cares about Amy Coney Barrett please ensure that she has access to Google
This Is the History of Anti-Trans Bigotry Amy Coney Barrett Doesn’t Want to Talk About
Barrett thinks transgender people have been subjected to “relatively little” discrimination. This amicus brief aims to set the record straight.
ballsandstrikes.org
January 12, 2026 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
As President Donald Trump’s administration presses for more arrests and deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Philly’s public defender is expanding its services for immigrant clients.
Philly public defender launches new immigration unit amid growing federal arrests and deportations
www.inquirer.com
January 12, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
lawyers posting about trump news every day
October 9, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Seems like a prime example of vice signaling.
Musk’s porn bot is now generating 6,000 sex abuse images every hour. Even Starmer is concerned. But Ofcom is still deliberating as to what action to take.

Meanwhile I have had to ban comments on all the blogs I run because of the Online ‘Safety’ Act.

www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
The Gist: The Abuse Factory
X, the child abuse imagery app, revealed our state has no red lines. This is the Gist.
www.thegist.ie
January 10, 2026 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Musk’s porn bot is now generating 6,000 sex abuse images every hour. Even Starmer is concerned. But Ofcom is still deliberating as to what action to take.

Meanwhile I have had to ban comments on all the blogs I run because of the Online ‘Safety’ Act.

www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...
The Gist: The Abuse Factory
X, the child abuse imagery app, revealed our state has no red lines. This is the Gist.
www.thegist.ie
January 10, 2026 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Article from 2014 for your consideration. Ross worked for border patrol

www.thenation.com/article/arch...
US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them
An internal review of the US Border Patrol raises serious questions about the agency’s use-of-force policy.
www.thenation.com
January 10, 2026 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
I wrote up my analysis of what Ross's movements and actions reveal about whether or not he had a "reasonable belief that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury" (the legal standard). I list 7 crucial moments that suggest he did not. asharangappa.substack.com/p/friday-rou...
Friday Round Up! 1/9/26
It was a bad shoot.
asharangappa.substack.com
January 10, 2026 at 5:57 PM
@audrelawdamercy.bsky.social and other kind lawyers out there: Did Ross actually have any authority to order Renee Good out of her car? She wasn't actually blocking the raod (other cars can be seen passing on video). Do they have authority to do anything other than enforce immigration laws?
January 10, 2026 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Not Actually a Cat
Here's a gift link to a NYT article about Barnes v. Felix, a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court case establishing that in excessive-force cases, "a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment."

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/u...
Supreme Court Rejects ‘Moment of Threat’ Limit in Excessive Force Suits
www.nytimes.com
January 10, 2026 at 3:40 PM